brow

highbrow

1. adjective Of or pertaining to heightened intellectualism or superior learning or culture; especially erudite or sophisticated; appealing or suited to highbrows. The film is by no means highbrow, but it has an intelligent enough story and some compelling characters.After two degrees in literature, Stanley insists on reading only highbrow books.

2. noun A person who has or affects heightened intellectualism or superior learning or culture, often in a pretentious or elitist manner. Of course, a book like this won't be given the time of day by literary highbrows, but it nevertheless provides an engaging and—dare I say it—entertaining read.

highbrowed

Of or pertaining to heightened intellectualism or superior learning or culture; especially erudite or sophisticated; appealing or suited to highbrows. The film is by no means highbrowed, but it has an intelligent enough story and some compelling characters.After two degrees in literature, Stanley insists on reading only highbrowed books.

with the sweat of (one's) brow

Through or because of one's own efforts or hard work. With the sweat of his brow, my father turned a barren, fallow little plot of land into the flourishing farm you see today.This pair of entrepreneurs has created a billion-dollar company with the sweat of their brows.

the sweat of (one's) brow

One's own personal efforts or hard work. It's due to the sweat of my father's brow that a barren, fallow little plot of land was transformed into the flourishing farm you see today.This pair of entrepreneurs has created a billion-dollar company by the sweat of their brows.

by the sweat of (one's) brow

Through or because of one's own efforts or hard work. By the sweat of his brow, my father turned a barren little plot of land into the flourishing farm you see today.This pair of entrepreneurs has created a billion-dollar company by the sweat of their brow.

knit (one's) brow(s)

To furrow one's brow, often due to worry or confusion. Whenever there was a problem, my dad would sit in his favorite chair, knit his brow for a while, and then announce that he had a plan.When I asked Bill about what happened, and he knit his brows, I knew I was about to hear some bad news.

knit one's brow

by the sweat of one's brow

By hard work, as in The only way he'll succeed is by the sweat of his brow. This figurative usage appears in the Bible (Genesis 31:9), where Adam's punishment for eating fruit in Eden is "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread"-that is, he will have to work for his bread, or living. [c. 1600]

cause raised eyebrows

Also, raise eyebrows. Cause surprise or disapproval, as in At school his purple hair usually causes raised eyebrows. This transfer of a physical act (raising one's eyebrows) to the feelings it may express took place in the early 1900s. Lytton Strachey used the term in The Eminent Victorians (1918): "The most steady-going churchman hardly raises an eyebrow at it now."

When the eyes of the Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

He did it so energetically and thoroughly that the poor Worm was cast into the depths of remorseful despair, and went to bed that evening feeling that he was an outcast from among men, and bore the mark of Cain upon his brow.

She stands-- she sits--she staggers--she falls--she groans--she dies --and there are none of her children or grandchildren present, to wipe from her wrinkled brow the cold sweat of death, or to place beneath the sod her fallen remains.

Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade, And the whisper spreads and widens far and near; And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now-- He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear!

His first move was to send Davenport to Liverpool to try to find the steward of the WEST AFRICAN, who had told him about Oolanga, and if possible secure any further information, and then try to induce (by bribery or other means) the nigger to come to the Brow.

I do not know why I had expected her to be somehow changed; she wore the same gray dress that she wore so often, neat and becoming, and her brow was as candid, her eyes as untroubled, as when I had been used to see her occupied with her household duties in the studio.

He questioned himself; he sought to divine who could have been that soul in torment which had not been willing to quit this world without leaving this stigma of crime or unhappiness upon the brow of the ancient church.

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